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Back When Villains Rise Save as PDF
Chapters (52)
  1. Copyright
  2. Dedication
  3. One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Eight
  11. Nine
  12. Ten
  13. Eleven
  14. Twelve
  15. Thirteen
  16. Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-One
  24. Twenty-Two
  25. Twenty-Three
  26. Twenty-Four
  27. Twenty-Five
  28. Twenty-Six
  29. Twenty-Seven
  30. Twenty-Eight
  31. Twenty-Nine
  32. Thirty
  33. Thirty-One
  34. Thirty-Two
  35. Thirty-Three
  36. Thirty-Four
  37. Thirty-Five
  38. Thirty-Six
  39. Thirty-Seven
  40. Thirty-Eight
  41. Thirty-Nine
  42. Forty
  43. Forty-One
  44. Forty-Two
  45. Forty-Three
  46. Forty-Four
  47. Forty-Five
  48. Acknowledgments
  49. Read More from the Market of Monsters Series
  50. More Books from HMH Teen
  51. About the Author
  52. Connect with HMH on Social Media

“This is not the end,” Nita snarled, putting her hands on either side of his face and forcing him to look at her. “We won’t let it be.”

She thought of her list of corrupt INHUP agents. She thought of all the things Kovit knew about the Family he’d worked for and wondered if he could sell them for protection. Though they probably wouldn’t do witness protection for a zannie.

He trembled softly and shook his head. “No one’s ever survived being up on one of the list’s wanted posters. The longest anyone lasted was two weeks.” He closed his eyes, and she could see him beginning to spiral into despair again. “It’s over.”

Nita clenched her teeth and pulled his face closer to hers. She wouldn’t let him give up, not when they’d come so far. “No one had ever escaped from Mercado de la Muerte, and we burned it to the ground. No one’s ever been the subject of as high profile a black market hunt as me, and I’m still here.” For now, anyway. “We’ll find a way, Kovit. Trust me.”

Kovit met her eyes, and she could see he wanted to believe her, he hungered for her to be right, but he couldn’t quite accept it. “It’s too late. It’s not like we can take the information back from INHUP.”

“No,” Nita agreed. “We can’t. But we can prevent INHUP from publicizing it.”

“How?”

Nita looked at him, from his long, dark eyelashes to his trembling lips. Beneath her hands, his skin was soft, and she rubbed her thumbs gently over his cheeks, wiping away the spots of blood that patterned his face like tears.

Finally she whispered, “I have an idea.”

Two

NITA EXPLAINED HER IDEA, and Kovit’s eyes widened further and further the more she said. When she finally fell silent, he looked down at his hands, folded in his lap and streaked with blood.

“I . . .” He hesitated. “I need a moment to think.”

Nita nodded slowly. “Okay.”

He bowed his head, twisting his hands in his lap. He shivered occasionally, Fabricio’s pain flowing through him from the other room.

Nita wondered how distracting it was for him, if the constant influx of pleasure made it hard to focus. Kovit would have to leave the building to gain enough distance to not feel Fabricio’s agony. But leaving the building wouldn’t make him immune to feeling every other pain of the people around him. Every hangnail, every scrape, every sprain. She shuddered at the thought, wondering how he blocked out all that feeling, kept himself from constantly twitching and shivering and being distracted.